While you're making her cry, another guy is trying to make her smile again.

While you're not sure if you still want her, another guy has already figured it out.

"Sucks for him that I still get to bang her, huh?"

While the behavior is descriptive of Deltas as well as Gammas, only a Gamma would be sufficiently romantic to write a poem about it and sufficiently delusional to believe that he is somehow coming out on top in the process.

"It's not you, it's me. You are such a sweetie, always listening and making me smile, some girl is going to be so lucky to have you. I just feel I need to really try to work things out with _____. Yeah, he can be an ass but..."

I've heard complaints from men who hear this, however, I am really curious if they'd rather hear:

"You've been like a girlfriend to me and that is how I view you, very effeminate. Though he's an ass, he's masculine and that is very attractive to me. Though it may not make sense, I feel secure with him, I just need to figure out what I need to do so that he'll be kinder to me. Sorry I've wasted your time."

I've heard complaints from men who hear this, however, I am really curious if they'd rather hear:

That wouldn't be pleasant, but if I'd heard that back in the day, maybe I would have gotten it. Or maybe not. But the less honest treatment, the "any girl would be lucky to have you" attempted brush-off, just makes guys like that think, "She's coming around; I just have to escalate the nice behavior that she says is so impressive."

I don't think it's that Nice Guys are unaware that women are attracted to Bad Boys. It's that they think women are attracted to badness and niceness both, so the Nice Guy can win if his niceness touches her heart more powerfully than the Bad Boy's badness touches her loins. The part he doesn't get is that his niceness isn't just an alternative strategy, but actually a negative that's working against him.

I saw Jane Eyre on HBO the other day, and that's a pretty decent synopsis of the movie. She ultimately preferred an alpha asshole who went blind, got burned in a fire and whose wife killed herself, over a nice guy who was looking after his sisters, planning to be a missionary to India and had rescued Jane Eyre from poverty. She literally ran away from the nice guy horrified when he proposed and back to this burned up, blind alpha who had burnt down his own castle and wept when he welcomed her. To the nice guy it seems too ridiculous to be true.

I've heard complaints from men who hear this, however, I am really curious if they'd rather hear:

Since that message basically boils down to telling him if he acts more masculine he'll have better luck, it depends on how realistic it would be for that man to act on the information. Guys who could act on it would like to hear it. Guys who can't or don't want to would just be more bitter than ever. Just like how Game itself is received differently. "Bitter Pill Gamamas" and all that.

Sorry - the "nice guy" in Jane Eyre is a total prick. At the least the alpha (and it'd be interesting to break down the characters to see how alpha and beta both men really are) expressed some actual desire for her. Her cousin basically said (if I recall correctly) that she wasn't pretty enough for him to love her but that she'd make a dandy "helpmeet" on the mission field once he'd trained her correctly. If I had a choice between a pompous ass like that and Mr. Rochester I'd run too.

@SarahsDaughter, how many women do you think would be self-aware enough to know that, and honest enough to say it?

Not many, I certainly wasn't back in the day. That is why it is so important for men to believe it when they are told to not listen to what she says but to observe what she does/doesn't do.

She doesn't give off any indicators of attraction to girlfriend guy, he gets to see her in sweatpants and t-shirts whereas she does dress to the nines with her hair and makeup done to asshole guy's liking when she's going to be seeing him. She'll plan lavish surprises for asshole guy, make his favorite meal, dote on him and submit to him. She'll laugh at all his jokes and will develop heightened awareness of any other woman vying for his attention. That mixed tape (dating myself here) that girlfriend guy made for her to make her smile - she'll give to asshole guy.

She doesn't give off any indicators of attraction to girlfriend guy, he gets to see her in sweatpants and t-shirts whereas she does dress to the nines with her hair and makeup done to asshole guy's liking when she's going to be seeing him.

Sad thing is, LJBF guy convinces himself that he's making the real meaningful progress, because she lets her hair down and is comfortable with him, so that's going to score points against the guy she has to put on an act for.

"...and sufficiently delusional to believe that he is somehow coming out on top in the process."

Well, yes, in the truer form, not so true in the distorted form. I mean, if the task is to get in and out, without "getting caught", then he wins. Now, the problem with that, is in the long haul, even if he happens to have children through that process, he loses, if not so completely as the thief that never left his genetics. It depends on what game you are playing, and what level of maturity you are dealing with. I still have zero problems stealing a girlfriend, at least on the moral end of things. But a wife, even a woman who is engaged? Hands off, for me, at this point and for quite some time now. But if I steal someone's girlfriend, now, it won't be for a fling.

I have failed women, and myself. And, for that, I have some serious guilt. Mostly. To God I do. For myself, sometimes, it isn't... that easy.

Not that most women have the self-awareness to understand their own attraction triggers like that, but yeah, the second speech you posted at 6:27 would be preferable to the first, by far. Because it would at least be honest and accurate, and would give the guy some good advice he could use to maybe have a chanc with other girls in the future. Instead, the "you're a great guy, but..." speech makes him think he's already doing everything right, and just needs to "find the right girl" -- which may be ever so sincere on the girl's part, but is nevertheless terribly destructive to the guy's future romantic chances if he takes it to heart.

Sarah's Daughter, if I'd heard that during high school, when I was in a swirl of trying to Do The Right Thing and be beta (which drives a native sigma not to beta but straight to gamma), it would have snapped me out of it like a faceful of ice water. I doubt the girls to whom I was Uncle John, Professional Crying Shoulder, had any notion of what was really going on any more than I did. In some ways, distinctly less. But it would have changed my life materially, and for the better.

Would this characterize Sigma as well as Alpha (ignoring her, giving her problems, making her cry, etc.) -- or are there distinctions in the "cognitive dissonance tingles" Sigmas provide

It could. Pretty much all of my girlfriends were in tears about something or another at some point in time. About what, I couldn't tell you now, and in most cases I'm not sure I could have told you then.

Also - when the word "Asshole" is used I see it's usually an Alpha being described. If "Asshole" is the stand-in word for Alphas, what word best stands for Sigmas would you say?

Deniability. As in "plausible". The Sigma is the guy whose house your fiance visits for her last hurrah after her bachelorette party. One reason I was skeptical about marriage was because, in my experience, being engaged didn't even seem to slow a woman down.

Because they are outside the social hierarchy, Sigmas tend to make for ideal cheating partners. A significant percentage of the women with whom I was casually involved had either boyfriends or fiances. What deltas and gammas never understand is that part of the appeal of the player is the knowledge that he's not going to pester the woman or insist on her friends knowing about him.

@CailSad thing is, LJBF guy convinces himself that he's making the real meaningful progress, because she lets her hair down and is comfortable with him, so that's going to score points against the guy she has to put on an act for.

Oh, I can imagine then the worst scenario might play out like this: he finally feels he's "in" with her and makes his move (tries to kiss her, whatever) and she's shocked, "I thought you were my friend! All this time you've been wanting to get with me? OMG! You're no different than any other guy, all you've been after is sex. You lied to me! At least I knew all along what Alpha McBadBoy (copyright Deti) was after!" And then she'll even tell future BFF's of yours to watch out, you're just being nice to get in her pants.

Now you're giving me flashbacks. Yes, that's exactly what can happen: LJBF guy finally works up the courage to make his big move, be it with a kiss or a poem or whatever, and she freaks. And yes, that's how a nice guy can come off as a manipulative creep -- he was keeping his feelings to himself because that's how it goes in romantic movies (and because of fear), while she expected any real man to convey his attraction right away, through body language if not in words.